Tag Archives: debut novel

Season of the Dead – BBB

Posted by Ross Harrison on

Season of the Dead has arrived! This post-apocalyptic horror by Lucia Adams, Paul Freeman, Gerald Johnston and Sharon Van Orman is available now (links to follow).

Season of the Dead

“It is said that unto everything there is a season…these are the stories of a group of survivors during the season of the dead.”

Four individuals fight to survive as the zombie apocalypse crashes over the world in a wave of terror and destruction. Color, creed, and social standing mean nothing as the virus infects millions across the planet.

Sharon: a zoologist from Nebraska, USA, has worked with the virus, and has seen the effects on the human mind. She knows more about the virus than nearly anybody alive, and far more than she wants to. Gerry: from Ontario, Canada, he gets his first taste of the virus from inside a prison cell. Locked up after an anti-government riot, his prison guard transforms before his eyes into a flesh craving zombie. Lucia: a chemist from Pittsburgh, USA, flees from a furry convention dressed as a giant squirrel, and escapes from the city in a Fed-Ex van. She’s a girl who knows when to run and when to fight. Paul: thinks he can sit out the apocalypse in his apartment block in Dublin, Ireland, until the virus comes to visit, bursting his bubble and leaving him with no choice but to face reality or perish.

All four begin perilous journeys in mind and body as they face daily trials to survive: Four threads, four different parts of the world, one apocalypse!

Buy it now from Amazon UK or Amazon US!

On Goodreads

On Facebook

Long Time No Somethingorother…

Posted by Ross Harrison on

I’ve been moving stuff for nearly two weeks, and not doing much else, so I’ve had very little to blog about. Not that I blog much anyway. But I thought I should update a bit.

At the weekend, I took up another shipment of books to Waterstones. The manager had me sign them all. That’s the first time I’ve ever used my little squiggly combination of the R and H! Although it was quite small… I’ll get used to it. We’re also trying to organise getting the books into more Waterstones branches. Which will be good.

The small amount of writing I have done has been all over the place. I was reading through what I already have of my third NEXUS novel when I got the urge to start…a noir. I’m not sure where that came from. Well, I think the urge started when I was playing Max Payne 3, ages ago. But now I have five chapters and 12,000 words of it done. At the moment, it is set in the same universe as the NEXUS novels, but not a part of that series. I don’t know at the moment whether to keep it like that, or bring it back to more modern times. We’ll see.

So, I will finally get back to writing more of the (semi-)noir today, and I’ll continue to go through the third NEXUS novel, and the short story I was writing ages ago. Maybe I’ll finish one of them at some point.

Also, I despise Skype. It’s garbage. Microsoft deserves a slap in the face with a very heavy glove for forcing me to use it.

Meet Juni

Posted by Ross Harrison on

This is Juni:

Juni Lien

She does not like long walks on beaches, but she does like romantic candlelight dinners, because it’s that much easier to vanish into the shadows. She also likes long, sharp knives.

This portrait comes from the scene in Shadow of the Wraith, where Travis Archer goes to Juni’s hotel room to recruit her for his mission. She opens the door in nothing but her underwear and a silk robe, which she intentionally leaves open to keep Travis’ attention off the knife she’s contemplating sliding into his neck.

Mark Williams was did this art for me, and I’m very happy with the way it came out. I admit I wasn’t overly fond of the final face, and so cut the face out of his first update and merged it into the final scene, but that’s only because this face conveyed a sense of her character better.

It has already met with some unpleasant comments, sadly. But, at the risk of incurring more…what do you think of her?

EDIT: I have since made a few small adjustments, so this isn’t quite the same as the original you may see elsewhere.

60% Celebratory Discount

Posted by Ross Harrison on

Well, I have now published Shadow of the Wraith on Smashwords (here). It hasn’t gone entirely smoothly, as I left out the simple words ‘Smashwords Edition’, meaning that it can’t yet be sent to places like B&N and Apple, etc. And because I’m not at home for a while, I’m unable to fix it. It is, however, available from the Smashwords site itself.

Just for those of you reading this, here is a coupon for 60% off, valid until 10th August: MS92D.

I’ll be back to update once I’ve fixed everything. Enjoy.

Free For The Last Time

Posted by Ross Harrison on

Shadow of the Wraith is free again today, tomorrow and Monday. It will be the last time it’s free, as I won’t be enrolling in Select for a second time. So get it now! Or…wait and buy it later. I don’t mind.

Shadow of the Wraith, Kindle cover

‘Harrison expertly throws curve balls at the reader…’ – Tea and Text review blog

‘The best elements of every science fiction story you’ve ever heard of, brought together into one epic adventure!’ – Tea and Text again

‘READ IT! This book is absolutely amazing.’ – Bookishly Devoted review blog

‘…This one I couldn’t put down until I had finished it.’ – Amazon reviewer

UK

US

It…Ends!

Posted by Ross Harrison on

Like the end of the world, come December. But with less violence, looting and I told you so’s.

The final stop on the tour is Tea and Text.

I admit, I was a little concerned about today’s review, as it was the only one that I hadn’t seen ahead of time. Ann also kept quiet in emails about whether or not she was enjoying the book. I know the run of four and five stars must end at some point, and I wondered if it might be today.

It isn’t. I nervously found my way to the review, and the smile hasn’t yet left my face. Four hot cups of tea is a lot better than a glass of prune juice. I don’t like prunes. I don’t like prunes at all. Although the dried ones aren’t too bad.

I’m sure I’ll be back in a short while to rant about Star Wars 1313.

It…Continues!

Posted by Ross Harrison on

Today is day three of the mini-tour, and I’m at Sammy HK Smith’s blog for another interview and a review from guest blogger, David Muir.

He gives Shadow of the Wraith 9 stars out of 10!

Tomorrow, I’ll be at Zigzag Timeline for another interview. M’s review of the book is already up there and on Goodreads.

It…Begins!

Posted by Ross Harrison on

A bit like Batman did, but with less violence and skin-tight rubber.

The first day of my blog mini-tour is here, and it has started with a 5 star review and interview on Dragon’s Lair Books.

It continues tomorrow with another review and interview on Bookishly Devoted.

Don’t forget, Shadow of the Wraith has been reduced to £1.49 and $2.99 until Friday, 8 June.

Book Tour!

Posted by Ross Harrison on

Blog tour for Shadow of the Wraith

Well, blog mini-tour.

From Friday, 1 June to Tuesday, 5 June, I will be doing a book tour! Or more accurately, I will be sat here doing pretty much nothing while the blogs do the work of posting reviews and interviews with me.

I will be sitting all day with the blog open in my browser, just in case there’s a huge rush of die-hard fans with their own questions. All in all, I think it will be a quiet five days… But a fun five days! I’ve never done a blog tour before – mostly because I’ve never had a book out before – and I’m not entirely sure how it works. Hence the mininess of it.

Anyway, the tour will be happening in these places:

1 June: Dragon’s Lair Books – Michael will be posting his review of the book, and an interview with me.

2 June: Bookishly Devoted – Kari will be posting her review and interview.

3 June: SammyHKSmith – Sammy will be posting her review and interview.

4 June: Zigzag Timeline – M. will be posting her interview with me (she already has a review of the book posted).

5 June: Tea and Text – Ann will be posting her review and interview.

During the tour, Shadow of the Wraith will be lowered to just £1.49/$2.99, lasting until Friday, 8 June. Then on Saturday, it will be free for the day!

So come and join us! If anything changes, I’ll update here.

To Free Or Not To Free

Posted by Ross Harrison on

Ok, I think I may have wasted that ‘clever’ title on this post, but it does seem to be the question on Amazon’s mind every time I want Shadow of the Wraith to be free.

Last weekend, I had Saturday and Sunday scheduled for a free promotion. All went as planned, as far as I was aware. I checked Amazon.co.uk and it was at £0.00 – all good. However, then came 4 or 5pm. ‘Your book isn’t free’, was the simple message from an American who had gone to download it.

Now, we can’t see the price on ebooks on the Amazon sites that we’re not meant to buy from, so I had no way, previously, of knowing if it was free on .com, and no reason to doubt it. Of course, that was still early morning in America – who knows why that American was up at that time, but I’m glad she was. Then again, you people seem to get up ridiculously early compared to us!

Amazon, surprisingly, only took an hour or two to respond to my email, and told me that it was a temporary glitch, and that it had been sorted. Nonetheless, it didn’t become free on Amazon.com until about 9pm here – so afternoon there. Plenty of time for all the Americans and Canadians and Irish – and whoever else has to buy from .com – whom I’d told about its freeness, to go on and discover that I was lying. Or as far as they knew, anyway.

Still, all was well, and I ended up getting 448 free downloads over the two days. Most from the .com site, despite the…hiccough. Amazon promised to make it free on a day of my choosing to make up for it. That day is today.

So I turned on my laptop, checked all the sites I check, panicked unnecessarily when I remembered the book was free and I’d told no one, and had a cup of coffee. I set about posting on every forum I’m on – actually not a huge amount, but with my memory, I can’t afford to be on too many!

Then, as I was about to click ‘post’ on my final thread, it occurred to me that perhaps I should have actually checked Amazon, rather than just naively trusting them.

£2.56.

Yes, they’ve done it again. On this, the day supposed to make up for their screw up last week, they have screwed up. They’ve done the exact same thing, but in reverse. This time, Amazon.com lists it as free, but .co.uk does not.

Now, I can hardly be too annoyed with Amazon, or complain about them too much. After all, thanks to them, I am now a published author – even if I won’t actually feel like that until the first, say…5000 sales. But it is a little disappointing when one of your most powerful tools to get your book and your name out there is messed up. We only get five free days every ninety days, after all.

Anyway. In short, Shadow of the Wraith is free on Amazon.com – and quite possibly .de and so on, I don’t know – but not on Amazon.co.uk. Sorry, but it’s not my fault! We’ll have to see if they offer me another free free day to make up for this time.